suppose I'd want him to just go 'groping around' like he was telling
you? That would be crazy, of course. Little as his work at Lamb's brings
in, I wouldn't be so silly as to ask him to give it up just on a CHANCE
he could find something else. Good gracious, Alice, you must give me
credit for a little intelligence once in a while!"

Alice was puzzled. "But what else could there be except a chance? I
don't see----"

"Well, I do," her mother interrupted, decisively. "That man could make
us all well off right now if he wanted to. We could have been rich long
ago if he'd ever really felt as he ought to about his family."

"What! Why, how could----"

"You know how as well as I do," Mrs. Adams said, crossly. "I guess you
haven't forgotten how he treated me about it the Sunday before he got
sick."

She went on with her work, putting into it a sudden violence inspired by
the recollection; but Alice, enlightened, gave utterance to a laugh
of lugubrious derision. "Oh, the GLUE factory again!" she cried. "How
silly!" And she renewed her laughter.

So often do the great projects of parents appear ignominious to their
children. Mrs. Adams's conception of a glue factory as a fairy godmother
of this family was an absurd old story which Alice had never taken
seriously. She remembered that when she was about fifteen her mother
began now and then to say something to Adams about a "glue factory,"
rather timidly, and as a vague suggestion, but never without irritating
him. Then, for years, the preposterous subject had not been mentioned;
possibly because of some explosion on the part of Adams, when his
daughter had not been present. But during the last year Mrs. Adams had
quietly gone back to these old hints, reviving them at intervals and
also reviving her husband's irritation. Alice's bored impression was
that her mother wanted him to found, or buy, or do something, or
other, about a glue factory; and that he considered the proposal so
impracticable as to be insulting. The parental conversations took place
when neither Alice nor Walter was at hand, but sometimes Alice had come
in upon the conclusion of one, to find her father in a shouting mood,
and shocking the air behind him with profane monosyllables as he
departed. Mrs. Adams would be left quiet and troubled; and when Alice,
sympathizing with the goaded man, inquired of her mother why these
tiresome bickerings had been renewed, she always got the brooding and
cryptic answer,